


with the passion put to use

by basha



Category: The Social Network (2010)
Genre: Getting Back Together, Getting Together, M/M, Post-Canon Fix-It, Therapy, but also kind of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-01
Updated: 2020-04-01
Packaged: 2021-02-28 22:27:53
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,106
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23434660
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/basha/pseuds/basha
Summary: Mark starts going to therapy around the same time that Eduardo starts to come back into his life.
Relationships: Eduardo Saverin/Mark Zuckerberg
Comments: 7
Kudos: 127





	with the passion put to use

**Author's Note:**

> I feel that it is important to note that I'm writing about the fictional versions of Mark and Eduardo from the movie, not the people from real life. 
> 
> Title from Elizabeth Barrett Browning's Sonnets from the Portuguese – Sonnet 43: "I love thee with the passion put to use  
> In my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith." It felt apt.
> 
> Enjoy!

“So,” Dr. Perkins begins, “what brings you to therapy?”

Mark blinks at her. There’s an answer to her question, a very easy one, but he’s not sure she’s going to appreciate it. The room itself is throwing him off: it’s more like a living room than an office, and the chair he’s sitting on is squishy and too comfortable. 

“I lost a bet,” he admits. Dr. Perkins’ eyebrows shoot up; Mark knows that expression from seeing it on Eduardo’s face years ago, so he knows it means that Mark’s just said something stupid and intriguing. 

“What was the bet?” Mark looks down at the ground.

“It was with my friend Chris,” he says. “He bet me that...well he bet me that someone we both know would care about something I thought he wouldn’t care about.”

“Mark,” Dr. Perkins says, which is another thing throwing Mark off because everyone else he meets these days calls him Mr. Zuckerberg even though he doesn’t ask them to. “You’re going to have to give me a few more details.” Mark chafes.

“Do I?” he asks. “Because I was under the impression that I’m paying you and therefore under no obligation to tell you anything I don’t want to.” Usually, when he says things like this to people they shut up, but not Dr. Perkins. Dr. Perkins laughs. “What?”

“When your assistant called me to set up this appointment she warned me that you might be somewhat averse to opening up. She told me that if you were ‘difficult’ I should tell you that someone named Dustin told her to tell me to remind you of the ‘bro code.’ Does that mean anything to you?” Mark sighs deeply. 

At some point, back at Harvard, annoyed with his general social incompetence, Chris and Dustin and Eduardo literally wrote out what they considered the rules of being a “good bro.” Mark doesn’t like to follow rules, but somewhere along the way he’s begun to revere their bro code like it’s the fucking Constitution. And one of the important rules is that if you lose a bet or a dare, you always always always have to follow through. And Chris didn’t just say he has to go to the therapist, he has to “engage.”

“I’m sorry,” he says, because that’s what you say when you’ve done something wrong. “My bet with Chris was about a mutual acquaintance of ours named Eduardo. Eduardo and I had a--a falling out a few years ago. We haven’t talked for a while.” Understatement. “Anyway. I...you know I’m the CEO of Facebook, right?” Dr. Perkins nods. “Well the other day the site crashed--one of our coders messed up something small in the interface that kind of spiraled...you wouldn’t understand the details--and it sort of freaked me out, so I spent a couple of days rechecking all the code.” A pause. “And apparently three days is too long to go without sleep, in Chris’ opinion. He threatened to call War-Eduardo if I didn’t go home. I told him Eduardo wouldn’t give a shit. He bet otherwise.” Dr. Perkins scratches something down on her notepad, and Mark is overcome with a desire to read it. 

“Tell me more about Eduardo,” Dr. Perkins says. Mark doesn’t have time to answer that, they only have an hour. 

“What do you want to know?”

“What did he say when Chris called?” 

“He called me a child, which is ridiculous because no child could understand this kind of code, it’s too complicated. And he told me to listen to Chris and go home and to sleep until noon.”

“And what did you say?” Mark meets her eyes for the first time. 

“I said okay.” Dr. Perkins scrutinizes him. People do that all the time, and it makes Mark uncomfortable, but it’s her job, so he’ll allow it. 

“And did you do it? Sleep until noon, I mean.” 

“Course,” Mark says. “It was Eduardo.”

The terms of the bet said that Mark only has to go to three sessions of therapy, but he keeps going every week, though he makes his assistant call it something else in his calendar so Chris won’t have the satisfaction of knowing. He keeps going for one specific reason: unlike literally everyone else in his life, Dr. Perkins will sit and listen to him talk about Facebook for a whole hour with only minor interruptions. 

He loves to talk about Facebook. Not the mushy human-interest backstory stuff that interviewers want to know, but the actual day to day stuff constantly flowing through Mark’s mind. Improvements they have to make. Improvements they could make. Potential weaknesses in the code. Potential weaknesses in his staff. When he tells Dr. Perkins that he would do 100% of the coding for Facebook if it was possible, she doesn’t roll her eyes like Chris or get huffy like Dustin (who, maybe, was the wrong person to say that to). Instead, she leans forward and furrows her brow like she’s trying to understand. 

“Does it make you anxious that you have to rely on others to build something that clearly feels so much like a part of yourself?”

“No,” Mark says automatically. Then he actually thinks about the question for a second, like Dr. Perkins always requests. “Maybe.” She nods, listening. “When other people are involved, it just invites exponentially more variables,” he says, unsure of the distinction he’s drawing. “Like, in school, with group projects, where you never know if someone’s gonna totally flake or if their grandma is going to die or whatever, so it’s easier just to do it yourself. This may come as a surprise, but I was never fond of group projects.”

“And this feels like one giant group project.”

“Exactly,” Mark says. He feels a rush of fondness for Dr. Perkins.

“Did Eduardo come with too many variables?” Dr. Perkins asks. “Were you worried about relying too much on him?”

And this. This is Mark’s biggest (and, honestly, only) problem with Dr. Perkins. She brings up Eduardo all of the time. It’s like she’s obsessed with Eduardo. Mark knew coming in that he was going to have to talk about his feelings at least a little bit (and he definitely does have feelings, fuck you Dustin). He expected a few questions about his childhood and his parents and even the lawsuits. But he was kind of hoping to put the past behind him after the first couple of sessions so he could talk more about Facebook, and Dr. Perkins is always trying to drag him back into the past.

Dr. Perkins is looking at him expectantly, so he tries to think of a real answer to her question. He hadn’t been worried enough about how much he relied on Eduardo, that was the problem. Even now, over two years later, he’s still struggling to fend for himself without him. 

“Yeah,” he says instead. He’s aware that you’re not supposed to lie to your therapist, but whatever. She lets him move on when it’s clear he has nothing more to say, and he gets to spend the rest of the hour talking about the pros and cons of a new feature he’s thinking of adding.

Dr. Perkins always says that Mark can call if he’s ever having an “emergency” and can’t wait until their next session, but Mark doesn’t use this privilege until nearly two months after the site crashing/Chris calling Eduardo incident when Eduardo sends him an email. It’s the first bit of contact either of them has initiated in two years. 

The email is pretty short:  _ Saw you on TV. You look like shit. How many hours of sleep are you getting per night? Answer me or I’ll sic Chris on you.  _

Mark is way more scared of Eduardo than he is of Chris, but he answers anyway:  _ 5\.  _ Then he calls Dr. Perkins. 

“Hi, Mark, I only have a few minutes before my next client, is everything okay?” 

“I think we may have entered an alternate universe,” Mark says without thinking.

“Pardon me?” Dr. Perkins is, as always, calm, but even Mark can hear the tinge of worry in her voice. 

“Eduardo just emailed me,” he says. 

“And?”

“He wants to know how much sleep I’m getting.”

“Mark.”

“Yes?”

“We’ll talk about this on Wednesday.” She hangs up. 

Eduardo doesn’t reply to his reply before Wednesday, which leaves Mark feeling even more anxious and irritable than he would if Eduardo had replied. (Probably.) Dr. Perkins looks glad to see him.

“Okay, Mark,” she says when he sits down. “Let’s talk about Eduardo.”

“It was no big deal,” Mark lies, feeling petulant.

“You called me to talk about it,” Dr. Perkins reminds him. “You said you thought we were in an alternate universe.”

“I was there,” Mark snaps. Dr. Perkins’ expression doesn’t change, but he knows that was the wrong thing to say. “Sorry.”

“That’s alright,” Dr. Perkins says. “I understand that this is bringing up a lot of emotions for you. Let’s start from the top.” Mark tells her in one unbroken ramble everything that happened, which doesn’t take as long as he thought it would. “You just said five?” Dr. Perkins asks. Mark nods.

“It’s true,” he says. 

“Okay,” Dr. Perkins says, “we should definitely talk about that at some point. You didn’t ask him any questions about himself in response?”

“Eduardo sleeps at least seven hours a day,” Mark says. “He has since freshman year. I already know that.” The corner of Dr. Perkins’ mouth twitches. 

“I meant--nevermind. This is the second time you’ve told me that Eduardo has been a voice of concern about your sleeping habits. Is this a staple component of your relationship?”

“We don’t have a relationship,” Mark says immediately. “But yes. Eduardo was always...he was always looking after me. Getting me to eat and sleep and stuff. And trying to drag me out to parties and all that. He thought I needed more of a social life.” Dr. Perkins doesn’t say it, but Mark knows she probably agrees with that. “Chris and Dustin used to call him my guardian angel.” He doesn’t know why he’s admitted that. 

“Hmm,” Dr. Perkins says. “And what do you think of that description?” Mark shrugs. He suddenly feels very cold. 

“He was nice to me,” he says. “Nicer than anyone else ever had been. And then he sued me for millions of dollars.” He glares down at his feet and refuses to talk about Eduardo for the rest of the session, despite Dr. Perkins’ gentle prompting. 

That night, Mark can’t sleep, which is annoying, because everyone is always telling him he needs to do it more and now he can’t do it at all. He pulls out his computer and brings up the tiny email conversation between him and Eduardo. Something Dr. Perkins said rattles around in his brain. _ “You didn’t ask him any questions about himself?” _

Without letting himself think, he types:  _ how are you doing?  _ He sends it. 

When he gets back in bed he falls asleep the second his head hits the pillow. 

Unbelievably, he and Eduardo start a very awkward, very stilted email chain: 

From Eduardo Saverin:  _ Why were you awake at 2 AM? I’m fine, thank you for asking.  _

To Eduardo Saverin:  _ Couldn’t sleep. Could you be more specific than that? _

From Eduardo Saverin:  _ Try harder. Experts say you shouldn’t look at screens for a few hours before bed. I know that will be hard for you but even you need sleep to live. I’m back in Brazil right now, visiting family, then sticking around for my niece’s bat mitzvah. It’s beautiful here. Is Palo Alto nice? _

To Eduardo Saverin:  _ I am trying I swear. The weather channel says it’s nice here, but I can’t remember the last time I was outside for more than five seconds, so I can’t confirm. How was the bat mitzvah? Was it fun or did it bring up war flashbacks like my cousin’s bar mitzvahs always did for me? _

From Eduardo Saverin:  _ MARK, GO OUTSIDE. Make Dustin take you for a walk or something. The bat mitzvah was great. Maritza did great. It did remind me of my own bat mitzvah, but I had a great time at mine, so all it brought back were nice memories. What went wrong at yours? _

To Eduardo Saverin:  _ I’m going to assume that it was your fault that Dustin accosted me yesterday and forced me to go on a hike. I will never forgive either of you. Nothing went wrong at my bar mitzvah, exactly, except that I went a little off-script during my d’var torah and started talking about how the existence of God has never been proved by science and all of my elderly relatives and my rabbi were super mad at me. I haven’t been back to shul since. _

From Eduardo Saverin:  _ I have no clue what you’re talking about (except that I totally do and you should be grateful I talked Dustin down from outdoor rock climbing). I can’t believe you pissed off a rabbi. Only you, Mark, only you.  _

“Are you glad to be back in touch with Eduardo?” Dr. Perkins asks. Mark shrugs. He does not tell her that despite the thousands of emails he gets a day, the only ones that he has his computer set to alert him of are the ones from Eduardo. Not even Chris or his mom get that kind of special treatment, but then again, neither Chris nor his mom ever broke his heart and then stopped talking to him for two years.

“Sure,” he says. 

Chris had warned him beforehand, but Mark doesn’t always listen to Chris all of the way, and his heart still skips a beat when he walks into the hotel for the conference and sees Eduardo in the lobby. If Dustin were not there, Mark would run away like the scared little coward he is, and he’d find a new hotel. He’s Mark Zukerberg. He could buy a house here if he wanted. 

Dustin is there, however, and he shouts: “Wardo!” Eduardo turns to look at them. He looks good. Older. He also looks terrified, which is reassuring because that’s exactly how Mark feels, though he keeps his face blank. Eduardo quickly hangs up the phone, and Dustin pulls him into a tight hug. Eduardo hugs him back. Mark is aware that Dustin and Chris still talk to Eduardo, but it’s weird seeing them together in person. They pull apart, and then it’s just Mark and Eduardo looking at each other. 

“Mark,” Eduardo says, extending a hand. 

“Eduardo.” He shakes Eduardo’s hand, firmly, the way Eduardo taught him back when facebook was just starting. Eduardo smiles, the fake smile he puts on for business things. 

“Good to see you both,” Eduardo says. “I have to go, but I’ll see you around the next few days?” Mark nods dumbly. Dustin gives Eduardo another hug and demands that they catch up over drinks sometime this weekend. Eduardo leaves, and Mark stares off into the distance where he left as Dustin checks them in. He doesn’t fully snap back to reality until he’s in front of his hotel room door, and Dustin is trying to hand him a key card.

“Dustin,” Mark says. “Dustin I want to go home. You can do the presentation without me, can’t you?”

“I could do the presentation better if you weren’t there,” Dustin points out. “But you’re CEO, bitch, so you have to stick around. Is this about Eduardo?” Mark takes the key and unlocks his door, which he slams behind him. Then he calls Dr. Perkins. 

“Mark?”

“Eduardo’s at the conference,” Mark blurts. “I know you thought I was being dumb when I called you about Eduardo the first time but this actually is an emergency.”

“Okay, Mark, I believe you. Can you breathe for me, the way I taught you? In for five...hold..out for six. Again.” Mark follows her instructions, screwing his eyes shut so he doesn’t have to look around the hotel room and remember why he’s here all over again. “I didn’t think you were dumb, last time,” Dr. Perkins says, eventually. “Just for the record. But let’s talk about this time.”

“He’s here,” Mark says. “Like physically here. Like I shook his hand a minute ago.”

“What’s so bad about that? We’ve established that you would like to repair your relationship. Isn’t this a prime opportunity?” Mark’s not sure they have actually established that, but Dr. Perkins is more emotionally intelligent than him and also he has bigger problems right now.

“What if he leaves me again?” he asks, voice wavering.

“What do you mean?”

“I know I fucked up Dr. Perkins. I know that. I know that and I paid for it literally and metaphorically. But even after all of this time, in its simplest form, my best friend decided to stop being my best friend anymore. I don’t know if I could take rejection from him all over again, not when we’ve just gotten back on friendly terms.”

“It sounds like you’re catastrophizing, or thinking about the worst case scenario. Tell me this, Mark: what does the best case scenario look like?”

“I don’t know,” he admits. 

The next night Dustin has dinner with Eduardo, and Mark comes along. Because he was invited, but also because they’re the only two people he knows here, and he hates talking to new people and doesn’t want to eat alone (which is stupid because he eats alone every night, usually in his office). It turns out to be a really really nice experience. They mostly talk about Dustin at first, which is perfect for everyone, because Dustin loves to talk about himself and talking about his personal life means they’re not talking about Mark’s or Eduardo’s, or worse, Facebook. They avoid all business talk entirely. They may or may not get a little wine drunk as they talk about Dustin’s girlfriend and Mark picks at his lobster mac-and-cheese. 

Then Dustin gets a call, from said girlfriend. “Gotta take this,” he says, and yeah, he’s at least a little tipsy. He wobbles away from the table, and then it’s just Mark and Eduardo. Face to face. Mark spears a piece of lobster and then just sort of holds it on his fork. They stare at each other. Then Eduardo rolls his eyes and exchanges their plates, switching Mark’s mac for his steak.

“What--?” Mark can’t finish the sentence. Eduardo rolls his eyes again. 

“You don’t even like lobster,” he says. “Why don’t you ever fucking actually read the menu? Don’t answer that.” Mark’s mouth snaps shut. “The steak will be better for you anyway. You need the protein.” 

“Okay,” Mark says. “Thanks.” They eat in silence for another awkward minute. Then Eduardo starts laughing. “What?”

“I think that was the first time you’ve ever said thank you to me.” A year ago that would have been an attack, and maybe it still is, but Eduardo is still laughing, so Mark does too. 

“That cannot be true,” he says. “I remember saying thank you to you for bringing me a beer very clearly.” That makes Eduardo laugh harder. “What? What did I say?”

“Mark, I cannot tell you how many times I brought you a beer and you just took it and said nothing. Too wired in, I guess.” 

“I’m really sorry about that,” Mark says, suddenly uncomfortable, trying to think of what Dr. Perkins would want him to say. “Thank you retroactively.” Eduardo smiles, and it’s only kind of forced. 

“You’re welcome.” Then: “Chris tells me you’re in therapy?” It’s an extremely inappropriate question for business acquaintances, which is essentially what they are now, but Mark’s sure Eduardo’s therapist gets paid right out of the settlement money, and anyway there’s a bigger problem with that statement. 

“Chris shouldn’t know that,” he says. “I make my assistant enter it in my calendar as a massage.” Eduardo has the audacity to laugh again. “What?” Mark whines. 

“First of all, Chris knows everything, so jot that down,” Eduardo jokes. “Second of all, Mark, you are the tensest person in the entire world. A masseuse would break their hands before they could get your shoulders to relax.” 

“I am not tense,” Mark says tensely. Then Eduardo makes a face, and he can’t help it. He giggles. Him. Mark Zuckerberg. Alleged robot. Giggling. It’s a bizarre noise, and it makes Eduardo laugh too. Dustin sits back down in his seat in that exact moment. 

“What’s funny?” He asks. Then he looks down at the table. “Did you guys switch meals?”

The gulf between them doesn’t go away after that conference, but Mark thinks maybe it gets a little tiny bit smaller. 

“Do you ever feel mad at him?” Dr. Perkins asks. Mark doesn’t even have to ask who she’s talking about. 

“Sometimes,” Mark says. “I…” Dr. Perkins waits patiently as he gathers his thoughts. “I’ve thought about it a lot, and I don’t actually think it’s fair, but sometimes I get mad at him for letting me push him away. In college, he, uh, pretty much did all the work in our relationship. And I took that for granted, I know that now. I wanted him to fight for us, you know, when we started falling apart. But he just got mad at me. Which...which was probably fair.” Dr. Perkins smiles at him, sadly. 

“Your feelings are perfectly valid, even if you don’t think they’re rational,” she says. “But have you ever stopped to remember that you were just kids back then?”

“We were nineteen,” Mark corrects, uncomfortably. 

“Exactly.” 

Eduardo calls him a few days later, which in Mark’s opinion is cause for a company wide panic. He does not freak out. Instead, he closes the door to his office, locking it behind him despite his assistant’s confused frown, and he answers the call. 

“Sup?”

“Is that how you answer the phone?” Eduardo demands. “You’re the CEO of a billion dollar company, and you answer the phone with ‘sup’?” 

“I answer work calls very professionally, I’ll have you know,” Mark replies. “But you called me on my personal cell and I have Caller ID.” He’s still standing up. He grips the edge of his desk.

“How do you know this isn’t a work call?” Eduardo asks. Mark can almost see the smug little look on his face. 

“Is it?”

“No,” Eduardo admits. 

“Then what is it?” Mark winces, he didn’t mean to sound so brusque. 

“I wanted to check in,” Eduardo says easily. “How are you?”

“Good,” Mark says. “Uh, I got nine hours of sleep the other night.”

“Look at you, taking care of yourself! Nice work, Zuckerberg.”

“Thanks,” Mark says. “Only I think Chris might have drugged me.” Eduardo laughs. “How are you, War--Eduardo?” Eduardo ignores his gaff.

“I am very well!” Eduardo says. “And I have good news.”

“What’s the news?”

“I will be in Palo Alto for about a week, starting Sunday. Business stuff. Not Facebook related. Wanna grab dinner some night?”

“Yes,” Mark says instantly. He tries to recall what people ask other people who are going to be in town. “Where are you staying?”

“Uh, I dunno, some hotel. My assistant will figure it out.” Mark takes a moment to picture how excited the Eduardo he first met, back at Harvard, would have been to say “my assistant” so casually. He’s so busy thinking about it that he barely hears himself talking.

“Why don’t you just stay with me?” he finds himself asking. Eduardo inhales sharply, and then there is a very long moment of silence. “Um, sorry, no, don’t do that. Or, er, you don’t have to do that, I mean. Sorry--”

“Mark,” Eduardo interrupts. Mark shuts up instantly. A few years ago, he would have tried to barrel right through. He hopes Eduardo notices the difference. “Can I ask you a serious question for a second?”

“Yes,” Mark says.

“And you’ll answer honestly?”

“Promise,” Mark says. “I swear on the bro code.” Eduardo laughs faintly.

“What, in your mind, are we doing here? What do you want from...from this?”

“I dunno,” Mark says. “You know I’m not the best at...normal human relationships. You know that. I just…” He squeezes his eyes shut. “I just miss you, dude.”

“I miss you too,” Eduardo says. He sounds very steady and normal. Mark is holding onto his desk like it’s a liferaft. “I want...this may sound crazy, Mark, but I want us to be friends again.”

“I want that too,” Mark says. “I really really want that too.”

“You miss him?” Dr. Perkins asks. Mark thinks she already knows the answer. 

“When I first moved out here without him, everything felt just slightly wrong,” he says. “Like there was a Wardo shaped hole in everything. And that feeling’s never quite gone away. Even after all this time and everything that’s happened...I still look off to the side sometimes to say something to him and get surprised when he’s not there. It’s not that I miss him, not exactly. It’s that everything feels wrong without him.” 

Cohabitating with Eduardo is surprisingly easy. 

Though, obviously, not at first. At first, it’s tense and painful and Mark wants to run away, preferably somewhere very cold and dark where Eduardo won’t ever follow. At first, Mark shows up at the airport early, and then keeps driving around the airport in circles for half an hour before Eduardo calls.

“Did your plane get delayed?” he asks. 

“What?” Eduardo says. “No. I’m at your house, but I guess you can’t hear me knocking. Come let me in.” 

“What?” Mark asks. “Wardo, I’ve been driving around the airport for an hour.”

“Don’t call me that,” Eduardo snaps. “And it’s not my fault I didn’t believe you when you said you’d pick me up.”

“Oh my god, this again?”

“I’ll call a cab and go to a hotel,” Eduardo says. It’s a threat and they both know it. Mark needs Eduardo back in his life so much more than Eduardo needs to let the walking trainwreck named Mark Zuckerberg back into his probably very awesome life. 

“Please don’t,” he says. “I’ll be there in twenty minutes. I’ll give you the code so you can get inside.”

“Code,” Eduardo snorts. “Nerd.” 

“Does this mean you’ll stay?” Mark asks.

“Yes.” Mark can practically hear Eduardo rolling his eyes, but he doesn’t care. He makes it back to the house in fifteen minutes because he’s a fast driver anyway and he’s nervous. Eduardo hugs him, and Mark gives him a little tour of the house and sets him up in the guest room and they don’t start fighting again until they’re in the kitchen making dinner. 

“I can’t believe you didn’t trust me to pick you up,” Mark mutters, because he’s an idiot. He pulls out an onion and tries to figure out how to cut it. Eduardo is sitting at the table with a glass of wine, just watching him. He scowls. 

“Can you blame me?” 

“Yes! I’m trying to demonstrate that I’ve changed, and you won’t even give me the chance.”

“You are so clueless,” Eduardo seethes. “I’m not giving you anything anymore, okay, Mark? You have to earn it this time. And I was never really mad you didn’t pick me up. I was mad you didn’t call.”

“I’m sorry!” Mark says. “What do you want me to say? I was young and stupid and a bad friend. I’m sorry.” Eduardo stares at him so long he wonders if he should have put the knives away before letting Eduardo into his house. Then Eduardo smiles. 

“That,” Eduardo says. “That’s what I’ve always wanted you to say.” He puts down his glass and comes to stand next to Mark. “You are so totally doing this wrong.” He takes the knife and starts to cut with practised ease. Mark blames the onion entirely for the tears that spring to his eyes. 

It gets easier after that. He and Eduardo eat the dinner they’ve made and watch Star Wars until they fall asleep on the couch, just like old times. During the next few days, Eduardo goes to meetings during the day while Mark goes to work. They eat dinner together every night, and sometimes even lunch. They have a lot to catch up on, and they stay up late most nights, plates scraped clean, amusing each other with anecdotes. 

Sean doesn’t come up until dinner the last night. They’ve ordered takeout, and they’re eating it while sitting by Mark’s pool, which hasn’t been used in three months since Dustin got his own. Eduardo puts his feet in the water. Mark has his legs crossed under him. 

“You haven’t mentioned Sean once this week,” Eduardo says, staring off into the pool like the thought just occurred to him. 

“Yeah, well, you hate him,” Mark says flippantly. 

“But you don’t,” Eduardo points out. Mark shrugs.

“I haven’t talked to Sean in a while,” he says. Eduardo grins, then schools his expression quickly enough he probably thought Mark didn’t see it. 

“Oh,” Eduardo says. It’s dark, and there are fireflies all around them. Mark’s chest aches with want. But what does he want? He looks at Eduardo.

“Can I give you a hug?” he blurts. Eduardo smiles and opens his arms. 

“So how do you feel about this last week?” Dr. Perkins asks. “Was it nice to have Eduardo back?” Mark doesn’t bother lying. He grins and nods. 

“It felt right,” he says easily. 

After that, Eduardo’s back in his life for good. It’s not the same as it used to be, but that’s a good thing and a bad thing. Eduardo’s much more guarded this time, but he’s also more willing to ignore the business side of things, which makes him, in Mark’s opinion, more fun. Mark likes to think that he’s kinder this time around. 

They text, a lot:

From Eduardo Saverin:  _ mark look at this picture of my niece and her cat [image attached] _

To Eduardo Saverin:  _ I do not understand everyone’s fascination with cats. I created a website on which people can socialize with people from across the globe, and I swear half of our user generated content is just pictures of people’s cats.  _

From Eduardo Saverin:  _ mark just say it’s a cute picture or we’re not friends anymore _

To Eduardo Saverin:  _ It’s a very very cute picture! _

They see each other a fair amount, too. They both attend the same conference in New York, and they spend all of the dinners during which they should be networking by themselves, eating room service on the floor of Eduardo’s hotel room. Eduardo comes to California every now and then, and it’s established early on that Eduardo will never stay in a hotel, he’ll stay at Mark’s. Mark comes to pick him up from the airport every time (once he just leaves in the middle of an important meeting because he doesn’t want to be late) and Eduardo lets him. 

“It feels good,” he says to Dr. Perkins. “It feels right. I feel like I’ve gotten a limb back.” 

He doesn’t realize how true that statement really is until the day when he almost loses Eduardo again. 

The day starts out exciting and gets more exciting. It starts with Eduardo’s first visit to the Facebook offices since that terrible terrible day when he broke Mark’s second favorite computer and only heart. This time there is no yelling and no breaking things, just Mark trying and failing to be a good tour guide and Eduardo immediately getting along with most of Mark’s staff in a way that Mark never has. 

As far as Mark is concerned, just like everything else that involves Eduardo these days, it’s awesome. 

Around four, Mark can tell that Eduardo is getting antsy, so he starts packing up his things and getting ready to leave the office early for the first time in his entire life.

Then, because the universe hates him, the site crashes. 

“Fuck!” Mark hears a programmer yell, and then the office explodes with voices and frantic typing sounds. 

“What’s happening?” Mark asks. “What the fuck is happening to my site?”

“Too much traffic, Mr. Zuckerberg,” a woman sitting at a desk next to him whose name he should really know says. “The site went down.” Mark’s heart stops. Alarm bells go off in his brain, so loud he can hardly think. He can’t remember how to breathe.

A hand touches his arm. Wardo’s hand. 

“What do you need?” Calm and in control and so kind. Mark sucks in a deep breath, the way Dr. Perkins taught him. Then he pulls away from Eduardo and climbs up on a desk. 

“Listen up!” he shouts. Everyone turns to look at him. 

“We fix this before midnight,” Mark says, voice hard. “Dustin, assign some people blocks of code to check over and get the others working on emergency backup procedures, see if we can get the bare bones back up.”

“And what are you gonna do?” Dustin asks. Mark jumps down, which hurts his knees a little. He’s becoming an old man. 

“I’m gonna fix my baby,” Mark says solemnly, before disappearing back into his office. The next few hours pass in a complete blur. He’s just typing and trying and hitting refresh and not crying. He doesn’t look up until someone puts another energy drink on his desk and he registers that they’ve been doing it all night. He looks up and it’s Wardo. “Wardo.” He’s suddenly overcome with emotion. “Thank you.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Eduardo says. There’s a knock at the door, and Eduardo shoots whoever it is a stern look. “Go away,” Eduardo says to whoever it is. “He’s wired in.” It sounds like a compliment when he says it, not just a state of being, and Mark takes a swig of the energy drink and smiles. He cracks his knuckles and starts a new line of code. 

He gets it back up and working with the help of an intern named Kathleen that he immediately promotes to “deputy of something” (Chris will figure out what) somewhere around 11:30. Dustin leans so far back in his chair that he almost falls. Then he stands up. 

“Let’s get fucking wasted,” he says. 

“You do that,” Mark says. “I’m going to look over the site a bit more.” He ignores Dustin’s complaints about him being a workaholic. He knows. They all know. He turns to Eduardo instead. “Do you want to go home?” he asks. “I mean, you could have gone earlier, but I’m probably not going to leave until after 3, so…” Eduardo shakes his head, smiling easily. 

“I’ll stay,” Eduardo says. “Dustin, what have you got?” 

Mark loses himself in code again for another few hours, but this time it’s soothing instead of terrifying. Somewhere out there (probably about ten feet away from his desk) Chris is writing a statement for the homepage. His role in this particular incident is over now. He can go back to working on the algorithms in peace. 

Sometime later, Eduardo stumbles into the office. He’s drunk, drunker than Mark’s seen him in years. Good. Everyone deserves to chill out sometimes. 

“Mark,” Eduardo says. “Have you been sitting in the dark this whole time?” Mark looks around and realizes that he is, in fact, in semi-darkness.

“Apparently,” he says. Eduardo laughs, and then he sort of stumbles, and Mark is out of his seat before he knows it, skirting around his desk to grab Eduardo’s arm. 

“You called me Wardo earlier,” Eduardo informs him. 

“Sorry,” Mark says. 

“Don’t be.” Eduardo smiles at him dopily. Mark tries to guide him towards the sofa by his desk, walking backwards, which is harder than it sounds when Eduardo’s inebriated and he’s uncoordinated and it’s still dark. “You really love Facebook.” Eduardo sounds so sincere. Almost moved. 

“Yeah,” Mark replies. Because he does, he really loves Facebook. Not just because it made him rich and famous. Not just because it was a challenge and he likes challenges. Not even because when he was in the third grade no one showed up to his birthday party, and now he’s throwing the biggest party in the entire world through the only thing he’s ever really been good at: computer shit. Because it is, like Dr. Perkins always says, a part of him. Eduardo blinks. His eyes are huge and soft.

“It’s beautiful,” Eduardo says. “Your love, I mean.” Mark looks at him. And then, without thinking or planning or even really moving, he closes the tiny distance between them and kisses Eduardo. Eduardo kisses back, right away, deepening the kiss and setting his hands on Mark’s waist. He presses Mark back until he’s up against the desk, which is apparently exactly where Eduardo wants him. It’s exactly where he wants to be. 

Then Eduardo steps back. It’s like a blanket being ripped off of him in the coldest Boston weather. 

“Wardo,” Mark whispers. Eduardo takes another step back, and wavers again, and Mark remembers that he’s drunk. Like, really drunk. “Oh, god, Wardo, I am so sorry. That--that shouldn’t have happened. I’m sorry.” 

“It’s okay,” Eduardo responds. His voice is wrecked. “I’m gonna go home now.”

“Okay,” Mark whispers. He falls asleep on the couch in his office. When he wakes up, Eduardo has left the state. All of his stuff is gone from Mark’s house. He doesn’t email or text or call, so Mark doesn’t either.

Mark, who just can’t stop fucking up, apparently. He throws himself into his code and waits for his next appointment with Dr. Perkins. 

“Doc,” Mark says before he’s even sat down. “How long have I been in love with Eduardo Saverin?” 

Dr. Perkins blinks at him. Her expression turns from surprised to concerned to open and soft. “Oh Mark,” she says, sounding less like a doctor and more like a friend. (This, Mark is beginning to realize, is kind of the draw of therapy). “I’ve been wondering the same thing.”

They talk it through together. 

Did it start when they first met? No, Mark can’t quite remember that, and Eduardo always tells him they knew each other for weeks before they really knew each other. What about the rest of their time at Harvard? Mark, letting Eduardo dote on him; Mark getting off that one time to the memory of Eduardo calling him a genius and then locking that away in a box in his brain and never thinking of it again (until now). In the early days of Facebook? Was that codependence or was that love or was it both?

And what about their fights, after? Mark’s known for years that he had a falling out with and lost his best friend. He has never considered until now (despite all of Chris and Dustin’s shared custody jokes) that maybe it was also a breakup. 

During the lawsuit, was that love? It certainly hurt, whatever it was, the feeling that coiled in his chest like a snake and made him irritable and detached. 

Did it ever end? Dr. Perkins doesn’t think so. “My job is not to tell you how you feel,” she says. “But I have in my notes from our first meeting that you brought him up 12 separate times. Mark, he’s the reason you came in the first place. He’s the reason you stayed.”

“I stayed to talk about Facebook,” Mark says, feeling stunned. 12 times? 

“No you didn’t,” Dr. Perkins says.

Mark wants to pin down the exact moment that it started, but he can’t. Maybe it doesn’t matter. Maybe it’s enough that he loves him now. Loves him so much he feels like he might explode.

Mark gets on a plane to Brazil. He knows that’s where Eduardo is because of Eduardo’s last post on Facebook, which is fucking hilarious. He’s aware that it’s sort of ridiculous and also definitely a sign of privilege because most people would have to just yearn from afar, but he wants to be where Eduardo is and he can be. Simple as that. 

He wants to just show up on Eduardo’s doorstep without announcing himself but he doesn’t have the address and he also doesn’t want to get punched in case Eduardo really really really doesn’t want to see him. So he calls. 

“Mark?” Eduardo sounds nervous. Mark doesn’t want that. 

“What’s your address?” he asks. 

“Are you here?” Eduardo asks. “Brazil?”

“Yeah,” Mark says. “But no need to come pick me up at the airport. Just give me your address. Um, if you’re okay with that. I just...I want to see you.” 

“Fuck,” Eduardo swears. “Why do I always let you do this to me, Zuckerberg? Why do I always let you reel me in?”

“Is that a rhetorical question?”

“Yes, you brilliant idiot,” Eduardo says. “And shut the fuck up about me not coming to pick you up. That’s not how this works, not anymore. Stay right there.” So Mark does. He stays right there and he waits for Eduardo. A car pulls up in front of him. Mark doesn’t know shit about cars, but he thinks it’s a nice car. It’s certainly his favorite car that he’s ever seen, because Eduardo’s in it. 

“Don’t you have luggage?” Eduardo asks as he climbs in. The seats are comfy. Mark shakes his head.

“I sort of came here by impulse,” he says. “I had a very slow revelation followed by a bunch of other, smaller revelations and then I got on a plane.”

“You’re ridiculous,” Eduardo says. “Your revelations...?”

“About you,” Mark says. “All of them.” Eduardo looks at him. He nods, slowly. 

“I think I’m going to need you to say it,” Eduardo says.

“I love you, Eduardo Saverin,” Mark says. Maybe love is too strong for such a pivotal moment, but whatever. He’s spent at least five years not saying it. No time like the present. Eduardo smiles, and it’s blinding.

“I’ve loved you since freshman year,” he says. Then he fists the front of Mark’s shirt and pulls him into a bruising kiss across the central console. 

  
  


A year or so later, Mark twists the engagement ring around his finger as he sits in Dr. Perkins’ new office.

“Doc,” Mark says. “Eduardo asked me to marry him.”

“And you said yes?” Dr. Perkins asks. She’s enjoying this, Mark can tell. He holds up the ring, and it glints brilliantly in the light. 

“Course,” he says. “It’s Wardo.” 

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on tumblr at <https://sunshine394.tumblr.com/>!


End file.
